Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits: Real-World Strategies That Work

By Ilona Bray

Jumpstart your fundraising efforts!

Whether your nonprofit has just gotten tax-exempt status or has been operating for years, its success depends on its ability to raise donations from individuals, companies, and institutions. The question you’re facing is, “How do we make our voices heard and bring in the needed support?”

Here, you’ll find plain-English answers. Featuring advice and stories from over 50 experienced fundraisers, foundation staffers, journalists and more, this book explains how to:

• make a fundraising plan
• work with individual donors
• keep givers giving
• plan special events
• solicit grants from foundations and corporations
• use traditional and social media to engage supporters
• start a side business to raise funds
• and much more.

Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits also provides creative grassroots strategies and dozens of real-life success stories. Best of all, it cuts out the jargon and “consultant speak” that’s all too common in nonprofit books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NOLO
• Release date: Aug 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781413329902

Ilona Bray

Ilona Bray is an author and legal editor at Nolo, specializing in real estate, immigration law, and nonprofit fundraising. She is coauthor of Becoming a U.S. Citizen, U.S. Immigration Made Easy, Nolo's Essential Guide to Buying Your First Home and numerous other top selling books. Bray's working background includes solo practice, nonprofit, and corporate stints, as well as long periods of volunteering, including an internship at Amnesty International's main legal office in London. She received her law degree and a Masters degree in East Asian (Chinese) Studies from the University of Washington. Bray also blogs on Nolo's Immigration Law Blog.

Book preview

CHAPTER

1

Your Fundraising Companion

If you think you don’t have time to read a book on fundraising, you’re not alone. I’ve worked in some of the hardest-to-fund nonprofits around and fully appreciate that you might be reading this while simultaneously gulping down lunch and checking texts. But you probably know in your heart that when a person is too harried to learn to do fundraising right, mistakes and inefficiency are the inevitable result.

So, let’s get right to the heart of the matter: how this book will help you succeed as a fundraiser. It’s an attempt to distill and assemble, in plain English, the most important things you need to know in order to do your job well (most likely as a development director or staff person, an executive director, or a board member).

You’ll get right into the nuts and bolts of how to plan your fundraising strategy, assemble the right people, technology, and other tools, ask for gifts from individuals, businesses, and foundations, and much more.

Though this book will teach you the basics, it will also help you to think creatively. By understanding how other nonprofits are raising funds, you’ll be better able to think up ways to outdo them or to see where you might bend the rules a bit. You’ll find stories from experienced development professionals—many of them at small, struggling nonprofits whose constraints might be similar to yours—who’ve employed interesting strategies to gain fundraising success.

The question is, how much of this book do you really need to read? Don’t miss Chapter 2, which lays out all the tools you’ll need for effective fundraising, including staffing, personal skills, and technology. Also look at Chapter 11, which explains how to bring visibility to your organization—and therefore potentially higher donations from all sources—through printed materials and online.

After these, you can decide which additional chapters to refer to based on the types of fundraising your organization plans to engage in—choices you can make after reading Chapter 3, where you’ll find instructions and worksheets to help you create a fundraising plan.

Other chapters cover fundraising methods. I’ll preview those here, especially for readers who might be new to the fundraising field or whose organizations are considering branching into new types of fundraising. Even if you don’t use all these methods now, many readers of this book report keeping it on their shelves for ongoing reference.

Chapter 4, Attracting Individual Supporters. The real, everyday people who believe in your organization should probably be its bread and butter. Their donations are a sign of community relevance and support and (conveniently for your organization) come with few strings attached. Yet many new fundraisers, as well as established organizations, don’t realize their potential and rely too much on foundation grants, potentially leading to huge rises and falls in support. Read this chapter to learn how to gain or expand steady community support.

Chapter 5, How to Keep the Givers Giving. Your new supporters probably won’t give large gifts, and they’re statistically likely to leave in a couple of years unless you take active steps to increase their interest. Read this chapter to learn how to analyze your donor base and further engage donors through personal contacts, appeal/renewal letters or emails and other communications, and invitations to volunteer to otherwise get involved. Sample letters are included.

Chapter 6, Midscale and Major Donors. This chapter explains how to identify your most committed supporters and encourage them to give more. New fundraisers who feel anxious about asking for major gifts will especially appreciate this chapter’s gradual approach to building relationships between their organization and their potential major donors before popping the money question.

Chapter 7, Funds From the Great Beyond: Bequests and Legacy Gifts. This final chapter on working with individual donors focuses on offering alternative ways to give, namely through wills and living trusts. This chapter isn’t appropriate for an organization whose existence is temporary or tenuous, because it involves planning around events that might take place far in the future (usually, a donor’s death). However, the chapter will show how smaller, grassroots organizations can start programs to attract inheritance gifts without worrying about the more financially complex arrangements that some larger organizations are able to offer (such as charitable annuities). The chapter also provides plain-English explanations of these more complex arrangements, so you can plan your transition toward offering them.

Chapter 8, Special Events. There’s almost no organization that won’t put on a special event at some point, both because they’re fun and because simpler events, such as bake sales and garage sales, offer a quick way to raise money without much advance planning or experience. However, the bigger the party, the greater the chance it will be a flop, financially and otherwise. This chapter explains how to choose an event that’s most likely to be a success for your organization, from auctions to walkathons. It includes budget worksheets that will help you make sure your event will bring in money.

Chapter 9, Raising Money Through Business or Sales Activities. If your bake sale went well, why not open a bakery? Thinking along these lines, many nonprofits have explored ways to make money through business activities, thereby reducing their reliance on foundations and the more limited donor—as opposed to consumer—pool. Unfortunately, enthusiasm has exceeded planning in many cases, and all too many nonprofit-run businesses have failed. Read this chapter to learn where others went wrong, how IRS requirements affect your business possibilities, and how to plan and launch your business in a gradual, low-risk way.

Chapter 10, Seeking Grants From Foundations, Corporations, and Government. Nonprofits cannot live on grants alone, though many try. Nevertheless, grant funding, from foundations, corporations, and local or federal government sources, has an important place in almost every nonprofit organization’s budget. Such funding is especially good for jump-starting a new project or initiative. Read this chapter for tips on how to excite a foundation’s interest in your organization before you start writing, how to fully address every important component of a grant proposal, and how to write in a voice whose clarity and passion wake up the overburdened reader at the other end. It includes worksheets for breaking down and comparing different grant possibilities and a sample query letter.

Enough preliminaries. It’s time to learn how you can raise more money for your group—and create the long-term relationships with your community, supporters, and foundations that lead to sustained fundraising success.

TIP

Look on the Nolo website for handy worksheets. Various worksheets and checklists are presented throughout this book. You’ll find online versions at www.nolo.com; see the appendix for the link.

CHAPTER

2

Fundraising Tools

Fundraising People

The Executive Director

The Development Director

Board of Trustees

Advisory Council

Other Paid Development Staff

Paid Staff in Nondevelopment Roles

Other Volunteers

Outside Consultants and Contractors

Fundraising Skills

Interest in Other People

Writing Ability

An organization’s fundraising office is often expected to perform feats of magic, sometimes with few more resources than the legendary pile of straw. But success will depend, in large part, on your leadership investing in the people, resources, and technology necessary to do the job right. This means more than investing only in activities that will produce immediate results: A successful fundraising program must budget for the long term, with plans for such things as donor recruitment, cultivation, stewardship, and acknowledgment.

This chapter introduces the tools you’ll need to provide a solid foundation for your fundraising efforts.

It covers:

how the position of each person in your organization—including volunteers and paid staff—can play a role in fundraising

personal skills that a development professional needs to have or develop, and

equipment and technology for fundraising, including computer and Web tools.

RESOURCE

Need help with legal tasks like incorporating your nonprofit? This book assumes that your organization has already taken care of some legal and tax basics—namely, forming a nonprofit corporation and successfully applying for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and any required state tax permits. In addition, most states require you to register with their attorneys general before soliciting funds within those states (even online!), and many also require you to report your fundraising expenditures and revenues. For step-by-step instructions on incorporating your nonprofit and applying for tax-exempt status, see How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation (national and California versions), by Anthony Mancuso (Nolo). Then check out Nonprofit Fundraising Registration: Nolo’s 50-State Digital Guide, by Ronald J. Barrett and Stephen Fishman, J.D. (Nolo).

Fundraising People

In an ideal situation, your nonprofit would have a bustling staff of paid fundraising professionals, each with separate responsibilities and areas of expertise. More likely, however, it will need to cobble together a mix of board members and other committed volunteers, hopefully with the assistance of one or more paid fundraising staffers.

Especially during a nonprofit’s early years, it’s common for several people to wear two or more hats—your best fundraiser might also serve as your volunteer coordinator or your executive director, for instance.

Those who might participate in fundraising efforts include the organization’s:

executive director

development director

board of directors

advisory council

other paid development staff

paid staff in nondevelopment roles

other volunteers, and

outside consultants.

TIP

Track your hours to find out your staffing needs. If you have the chance to expand your development staff, you’ll need to figure out what type of help will give you the most bang for your buck. The answer might be no further away than your own workday. Try keeping track of where each hour goes. Even scribbling entries such as 9:30 to 11:00 planning meeting, 11:00 to 12:30 research can reveal that you spend hours in ways you wouldn’t have guessed. If, for example, you find that most of your time is spent on events planning, it might be worth contracting with an outside events planner rather than putting a new person on salary. Or, if most of your hours go toward clerical tasks, you might save money by hiring a support staffer.

The Executive Director

Fundraising is, or should be, part of every executive director’s (ED’s) job description. This includes getting to know the organization’s supporters, meeting individuals to solicit major gifts, interacting with staff at foundations, reviewing grant proposals, helping oversee special events, speaking at events, and more. Sounds like a lot of hours, doesn’t it? And most EDs already have plenty on their plates concerning their organizations’ missions, programs, and personnel. But any ED who doesn’t somehow make the time for fundraising activities isn’t fulfilling the job requirements, period.

TIP

Former development directors can become great EDs. Drawing on his experience as a Bay Area nonprofit executive search consultant, J.R. Yeager says, Many skilled, well-organized development directors are ready and well positioned to step into the role of ED, particularly with smaller nonprofits. Most smaller organizations truly need their ED to do much of the fundraising. As for the other parts of the ED’s job, these can be supported (for example, the board treasurer and outside auditor can help with budgeting and financial matters) and ultimately learned as the new ED grows into the job.

The smaller your organization’s staff, the more time your ED will need to spend on fundraising. But if your organization can afford to hire a development director, the ED might be tempted to delegate most fundraising activities to that person. This can be a mistake. To the outside world, the ED is the face of your organization, the person seen (rightly or wrongly) as having the fullest sense of how your organization’s need for money intersects with its mission, goals, and day-to-day work. Whether pursuing a large grant or trying to coax a major donor to increase support, the ED is usually the best staff person to close the deal.

Fortunately, the ED won’t be solely responsible for all or even most parts of the fundraising process. The ED should help solicit major gifts, for example, but need not be present for every gift request. Nor will the ED have to be involved in the day-to-day work of staying in close contact with donors. Your board and staff members may also participate, depending on who is being approached. And when it comes to grant applications, the ED’s role should be limited to reviewing proposals, not writing them. If you can afford a development director, grant writing and other behind-the-scenes tasks will be done by that person. If not, your organization might use board members and other volunteers, as well as paid consultants and freelance contractors, to do the work.

On the other side of the coin, an ED must be willing and able to share fundraising tasks with other board and staff members, especially the development director. An ED who can’t bear to part with these tasks, or won’t trust others with them, can spell trouble for an organization’s long-term survival. Over and over, one hears stories of a charismatic, successful ED who successfully grows a small nonprofit—but then continues to attempt to single-handedly raise all the money and lead the organization. Such EDs tend eventually to either burn out, neglect important tasks, or move on to another job, thus crippling the nonprofit. Consultant J.R. Yeager notes that a wise organization (no matter its size) will plan a formal and clear line of succession, so that a ‘void’ will not happen—or will at least be minimized if an organization’s ED departs.

The Development Director

Perhaps you are the development director at your nonprofit, or perhaps you are a board member or an ED of a smaller organization. Although some small nonprofits plan to stay small—let’s say, Friends of the Rose Garden—and find it practical to delegate fundraising to volunteers, most growing organizations need to hire a part- or full-time development director. (What salary can development directors command? Sources list a range of anywhere between $89,000 and $145,895.)

Ideally, a full-time development director will oversee all aspects of the fundraising process, including planning strategy, gathering input from the board and ED, identifying potential funding sources, and ensuring smooth operation of fundraising activities. Frequently, however, the development director ends up carrying out practically every other aspect of the fundraising program: writing appeals, acknowledgment and stewardship correspondence, and grant proposals; meeting with donors to solicit gifts; posting on social media sites; coordinating events; and more.

When this turns into busywork, it can prevent the development director from concentrating on important fundraising tasks. It will, therefore, be key to your group’s long-term success to identify other people who can help take care of discrete or routine tasks.

A successful development director brings certain skills and abilities to your organization. Among the most important is good communication—in writing as well in person. You need a people person—someone who genuinely enjoys interacting with others. Remember, asking for money is just a small part of the greater—and often more fulfilling—process of building the nonprofit’s relationship with donors.

Unfortunately, experienced and personable development directors are hard to find. Those with an ounce of savvy won’t hitch their wagons to organizations that are teetering on the edge of financial collapse, dealing with internal dissension, or experiencing other serious problems. Less-established organizations often have to compromise by, for example, sharing a development director with another (noncompetitive) organization, hiring someone who isn’t fully qualified, or hiring a part-time or assistant development director. Such a group usually gives the ED primary responsibility for fundraising.

The good news is, sources for training, mentorship, and so on are not hard to find. Even an experienced development director commits to professional growth, for example through programs offered by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP), local organizations, or a database service provider.

TIP

A little recognition goes a long way. Smart EDs and board leaders know that a dedicated and effective development director can easily burn out. One way to prevent this is to make fundraising a high priority and encourage all key people to participate without whining. Another is to recognize the development director’s hard work by expressing thanks, sincerely and in front of others, for jobs well done. Too often, recognition goes primarily to board members and volunteers, as if receiving a salary diminishes the value of the passion and energy the development director throws into a project. Don’t make this mistake!

Board of Trustees

By law, every nonprofit must have a board of trustees (sometimes called a board of directors, a board of governors, or another similar term). This is usually a volunteer group of 12 to 15 people whose responsibilities include overseeing the organization and being accountable for its compliance with legal and other requirements.

Board members are not mere figureheads: If they neglect their duties and an organization is sued or collapses as a result, they can be held financially accountable. (Many boards buy insurance to guard against this type of liability.)

As a practical matter, a good board will not only set the direction of your programs, but will also help make fundraising an organizational priority and participate in it personally. To this end, it’s a big help to have someone on the board who thoroughly understands nonprofit budgeting and finance.

Find Board Members Who Are Willing—And Able—To Raise Money

Unfortunately, there’s often a wide gap between what nonprofits hope board members will do for them and how prospective board members envision their roles. In my earlier life as a corporate law associate, for example, my law firm employer encouraged me and my fellow associates to join nonprofit boards. The firm wanted us to get involved with the community—that is, with people whose incomes were high enough to hire lawyers—by any means necessary, and offered to help us get onto the board of just about any organization we wanted—the opera, the symphony, whatever. That sounded good: I envisioned myself sitting around a meeting table, mulling over a group’s mission and giving sage advice. In short, like most novice board members, I was clueless. I not only had no idea about the depths of a board’s responsibilities, I hadn’t even considered that it might include plenty of time spent fundraising. (Luckily, I quit corporate law before inflicting myself on any boards.)

What lessons can be gleaned from my experience? Willing board members might be easier to find than you think, but:

You must be selective to find the ones with the knowledge and experience you need.

You need to be up front about your fundraising expectations.

Most board members serve three-year terms, with one or more renewals allowed. Check your bylaws—and think about amending them if board members can serve life terms, and you’ve got a few who are running low on energy and ideas. (Or think about enforcing your bylaws if people are overstaying their prescribed welcome!) Also build a process to incorporate new board members into the ongoing work of your organization.

Why would anyone voluntarily commit many hours per month to a demanding position? A few are truly selfless. Some are newly retired, with an adequate income and time on their hands. Most are hardworking people genuinely interested in the cause, who hope that they’ll be able to fit board responsibilities into already-stretched schedules. Unfortunately, too many busy people turn out to be unrealistic in their hopes and unable to do much more than attend meetings (if that). Finally, there are the aforementioned staff of corporate law and accounting firms and other companies that have a material interest in encouraging their employees to join boards. Even this category isn’t all bad, especially if you can make use of their professional skills (but realize that nonprofit finance and law are specialty areas that your average accountant or lawyer knows nothing about).

No matter people’s motivations, many of them will have trouble making the kind of long-term commitment that active board membership entails. Some nonprofits are thus rethinking how their boards are structured, perhaps paring them down to ten or fewer members, but asking these members to farm out work—including some fundraising—to committees. The committees may be composed of nonboard volunteers who can commit to the occasional sprint of activity—say, a donor campaign or a special event—but not to the marathon of full board membership.

Recruiting board members is a topic well covered in other places, so this book won’t go into detail on this.

No matter what else they bring to the table, however, you must make sure that potential new board members have an interest in fundraising—and understand that this will be a substantial part of their role. Because there are so many ways to raise money, there’s a role for any willing board member to play. You can help by preparing materials that excite potential board members’ interest, particularly when training new board members.

Board Donations

Some organizations give prospective board members a clear up-front understanding of their fundraising responsibilities by asking them to commit to making a major financial contribution every year. You might require board members to contribute a set amount or base contributions on a sliding scale.

Asking board members for donations might seem odd—after all, they are already asked to give generously of their time. One reason for this practice is that board members tend to be better at soliciting large gifts from others if they can say that they’ve given themselves. It demonstrates their commitment to the cause and their confidence that the donation will be well spent. In fact, potential donors—individuals as well as foundations—have learned to ask, How much have board members given? You might literally lose out on a grant opportunity because the foundation was unimpressed with the answer.

An environmental organization I know of not only specifically requires each board member to make a $10,000 donation, but also makes clear that their primary role will be fundraising. When the organization needs advice concerning technical parts of its mission or activities, it turns to a separate advisory council, made up of scientists and other experts.

Of course, your organization will need to decide for itself—based in part on what kind of work you’re doing and what community you serve—whether to solicit mostly affluent board members, or to ask for a particular monetary commitment. For less-well-off board members, an alternative to the up-front donation might be to ask them to bring in an equivalent amount of money from a new donor or business. Still, the last thing you want is for representatives of a low-income community or dedicated former clients to be shut out of serving. That doesn’t mean you can’t still ask a financially able board member to make a major gift.

Board Involvement in Fundraising Activities

Board members can help plan your fundraising program, spearhead or help carry out a special event, represent your organization in public, provide names of likely supporters, approach supporters for gifts, host house parties or other events, institute giving programs within their own workplaces, coordinate a new member drive, write personal letters, make phone calls thanking people for gifts, and more. All of this will help take weight off the shoulders of in-house development staff. Those who are reluctant to ask for major gifts can readily find a role behind the scenes.

Once board members become genuinely committed to your organization, they are more likely to stay interested and involved if you call on them for help on a regular basis. Performing minimal board activities—attending meetings and the occasional workshop, for example—can be less than soul satisfying.

Properly orchestrated, fundraising gets people out from behind the meeting table and into the community, where they can share what excites them about your organization. It also gives them a chance to enjoy the company of fellow board members on a less formal basis, thus helping them form enduring friendships.

What If the Board Just Won’t Fundraise?

Coping with board members who won’t take the fundraising ball and run with it is a common concern. If you’re a development staffer, it shouldn’t be your responsibility to talk balky board members into helping raise money—this is the job of the board president or the chair of the development committee. However, because you’re being judged by how much money you raise, you might find yourself with a vested interest in getting board participation. Here are some potential remedies:

Identify the board’s strongest leaders. Often, all it takes is one committed board member to inspire others. For example, Grant Din, former executive director of San Francisco–based Asian Neighborhood Design (www.andnet.org), recalls, We had one board member who was a development director at another nonprofit, which was perfect, because he could emphasize the importance of fundraising—and not have others tune him out the way they might if a staff member said the same thing. We also had another board member who really pushed for full participation by the board, and the two of them tried to create more of a giving-and-getting environment. As a board member for other nonprofits, I try to support the development staff by talking up the importance of board involvement in fundraising.

Make sure your board members understand and care about your organization’s mission. Some board members feel distant from the organization they serve. They might have joined the board for personal or career reasons rather than commitment to the cause. Will attending board meetings cure this? Not likely, if they consist of a superficial report by the ED and hours spent worrying about financial issues. But you can jazz up board meetings—for example, by bringing in staff members to do some show and tell of sample projects, art works by clients, videos, and so on. Also try moving fundraising higher on the meeting agenda (it’s often left until the end). And serve food!

Enlist an outside voice. Consultants are available to address a board meeting, lead a board retreat, and more. (Ask colleagues at other nonprofits to recommend a good one.)

Advisory Council

A nonprofit isn’t required to have an advisory council (or board or committee), but there are good reasons to establish one. Such a group’s responsibilities include little more than—as the name suggests—offering advice and input on what the nonprofit is or should be doing. Members might be experts in a certain field, represent a community you’d like information from, be well known, or be past staff or board members whose experience you don’t want to lose—but who aren’t able to commit to board membership.

For fundraising purposes, your advisory council can be a source of additional friends. At a minimum, members’ names should be added to your mailing lists.

Their quasi-ceremonial role makes them particularly well suited to special events—you might call on them to buy seats, sell tickets to friends, greet arriving guests, make speeches, and more.

As the advisory council members develop an increased sense of connection to your organization, you might be able to solicit them for major gifts. They might even be willing to put in short-term volunteer time on fundraising activities.

When it comes to the famous folk, your expectations of their actual participation should be minimal. You might be content for them to lend nothing more than their name, so that it appears anyplace that you list people associated with the organization—perhaps on your letterhead, website, and newsletter. Your cause gains credibility, and the people named enhance their reputations by appearing to be caring and compassionate. If such people actually show up for your meetings, it’s a bonus.

Other Paid Development Staff

Although there’s always pressure to run a lean development office (so as to minimize the percentage of the organization’s money spent on fundraising), penny-pinching isn’t always a good thing. If your potential donor pool is large enough, you might actually become more efficient at raising money by hiring more people.

A first priority is usually to hire a development assistant to handle the mail, enter names and other information on supporters into your database, check emails and other communications, prepare and mail thank-you letters, and handle other day-to-day tasks. Obviously, these chores could also be handled by a dedicated volunteer or another clerical person in your office, but the person will need sufficient oversight to make sure that the tasks get done on time and that the paperwork doesn’t get jumbled with unrelated matters.

A midsize organization might be able to afford a three-person department, adding a development associate to the mix. This is typically someone at a junior professional level, who works side by side with the development director, handling similar but less critical tasks. The associate would also have less responsibility for fundraising planning and dealing with key donors, and would be presumed to be in training for a director role.

Larger organizations often split fundraising tasks into subject areas, assigning a development officer to each. For example, care and feeding of major donors might be assigned to one person, while another handles grant proposals. A few nonprofits, such as universities, have development officers who spend much of their time just researching funding prospects.

Paid Staff in Nondevelopment Roles

A truly successful fundraising office maintains close communication with and calls upon program staff as needed. For starters, you want program people to keep your office informed about what they’re doing, supplying you with interesting stories (and photos) to illustrate their important work.

As a development staffer, much of your job is to explain the importance and success of your organization’s work to the outside world. But simply repeating your mission ad nauseam is not going to bring in donations. You need details—colorful, lively stories of difficult situations that your organization confronted and helped to overcome, for presentation in your appeal letters, newsletter, social media pages, and more. Here are examples of compelling stories from my own days as an immigration attorney at a nonprofit:

a father who literally got off his deathbed to take the citizenship exam and thereby ensure faster immigration for his children

a Somali youth who was beaten in intertribal violence and who was desperate to get through the immigration process quickly in order to go search for his missing mother, and

a Guatemalan who’d watched his entire village be massacred by the army, only to have an unsympathetic immigration judge deny his case because conditions had supposedly improved in Guatemala.

Because all of these stories so graphically illustrated the important work our group was doing, they were good material to communicate to potential donors. Unfortunately, however, because few nonprofits foster communication between program and fundraising staff, program staff members might resent being asked to weigh down their schedules or dirty their hands with the business of fundraising.

Try gentle persuasion rather than a frustrated lecture. Take a few key staff members to lunch, ask about what they’re doing, and find out what fascinates—or frustrates—them about their work. This information will give you a fuller sense of what your organization does beyond its mission statement. Don’t finish dessert without explaining how you communicate with key donors and funders who are likely to give more if they understand why your group’s current work is so important.

How Share Our Strength Gathered Stories

Between needing content for its fundraising appeals, website, email updates, and several bloggers, Share Our Strength and its No Kid Hungry campaign were, well, hungry for regular information from program staff. How else would its communicators find out about things like the volunteer who drives around in a non-air-conditioned truck to deliver summer meals to hungry children, or the mother who declared that, thanks to the Cooking Matters class, she could triple the value of her WIC check?

Opening the channels of communication wasn’t something that happened by accident, however. As Jason Wilson, then director of digital communications, explained, "We deliberately created a culture of storytelling within our organization. This involved bringing in three new people who focus on storytelling—called the Impact Communications Team—as well as identifying key stakeholders throughout the organization who were also responsible for sharing stories. We ask everyone to set aside time to find the stories that represent the impact we’re having, and then to connect with the Impact Communications Team, who were putting this information together for the Web or other materials.

"We saw the effect of this storytelling culture, and the more that people began to see their stories presented—perhaps in an email campaign or as online content—the more they realized the double satisfaction in not only accomplishing something through their day-to-day work, but also through the telling of that story.

"There was no set schedule for sharing—either the staff would pass news along, or the people in charge of content might approach them with questions like, ‘We’re looking for stories about X, what do you have to share?’

An effort like this really needs to be organization-wide, and involve accountability. For our team members, storytelling became a formal part of their performance goals.

When you later use information a staffer gave you, be sure to do internal marketing. In other words, show the staffer the appeal letter, or tell them about your successful meeting with a supporter or foundation officer. Some development professionals distribute brief emails or memos to staff describing recent fundraising efforts and successes, or post the classic thermometer to show progress toward a fundraising goal.

Your next step might be to request something more systematic from staff members. For example, you could ask program staff to write up regular reports on their activities, or to supply photographs or videos of their work.

CAUTION

Go light on the disaster shots. Although evocative photos of grieving family members and emaciated victims are undoubtedly moving and can be of some use in fundraising, upbeat pictures showing successes are usually even more effective. For example, a photo of the new buds of a nearly extinct flower that your group helped preserve will be far more powerful than a photo of the cracked cement that previously covered its habitat.

If your organization holds staff meetings, make sure all development staff attend. If you’re a development staffperson, this will give you a chance not only to keep abreast of what’s happening, but also to give a regular report on the fundraising office’s activities. Such reports should include more than dry numbers; they should also convey your hopes, challenges, and disappointments.

Staff meetings can also provide a convenient forum for holding a general fundraising training. Such trainings can cover basic issues like the importance of developing an extensive list of supporters, how staff can help contribute names, how they and their clients can help represent the organization on their Facebook pages or at special events or meetings with funders, and what your organization’s strategic plans are for the future, fundraising plans included. Also encourage brainstorming about fundraising. A staffer might have the next great idea for bringing in support.

As program staff hopefully get more attuned to the symbiotic relationship between themselves and your fundraising staff, you’ll want to encourage the more charismatic ones to help you with occasional, specific fundraising activities—for example, participating in an important presentation to a

Reviews for Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits

[wildmaggie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits thoroughly and systematically covers its topic. I’m a neophyte—other than being on the receiving end of nonprofit solicitations—and I readily understood the material presented. This book is primarily aimed at people new to the topic, but I think it has breath and adequate depth to offer something valuable to people with some experience in the field. Bray lays out the steps for small nonprofits to undertake necessary fundraising activities from planning a fundraising program through donor retention, and covers grant seeking, face-to-face donor interaction, and online routes to reach potential donors among other ways for nonprofits to generate funding. Sample worksheets are included to help implement the book’s advice. Also valuable, Bray tells readers when they will need more specific legal resources before undertaking some fundraising activities. What I found must enlightening: Bray explains the appropriate roles of major players in raising funds for nonprofits (hint: it’s a team game, not an individual sport). This book would be valuable for people accepting responsibility for raising funds to support their small nonprofit. It would be equally, or likely even more valuable for the executive directors and other senior staff as well as members of the boards of directors of those nonprofits.

[buildalife · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love the NOLO series. Clear and easy to read. I've been in fundraising for 20+ years and find that we often fall into our silos of specialty. This is an excellent overview of the many areas that create an effective fundraising effort. A great refresher for those of us who have been doing it for awhile and a solid orientation to those who are new to the profession. It would also be a great "fundraising 101" for nonprofit board members. Although it's taken me awhile to read and review this, I would love to set up a reading group within my organization so that we could learn more about what we all do and use the text as a launching point to further discuss how we do or don't apply it in our own shop. The resources mentioned in the book are adequate, but would be helpful to have a list of professional organizations and discussion lists as well as URL to some of the great websites that are available.

[alluvia_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I work with a software company that provides online marketing and CRM software for nonprofits, so deal with hundreds of people working to raise funds for their organizations. So often, people are looking for magical software solutions to basic fundraising strategy problems; problems that organizations absolutely should sort out prior to importing those problems into their new software! If I could, I would make sure every one of our clients had a copy of this book. The concepts here are foundational and extremely helpful. Once an organized, smart strategy is in place, every fundraising effort or new technology is made exponentially more powerful.Part of my basis for evaluating this book is my work with my current client base, but I also have 10 years of experience as a fundraiser. I've also completed the keystone course from Indiana University on fundraising. This book does not go into the depth of that coursework, but gives thorough support on the basics.

[dougcornelius_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My start towards global domination started with my local PTO. After getting myself “elected” co-president, I was disappointed to find out that a big chunk of the job is fundraising (and not unfettered power). When NOLO press offered me a copy of Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits for review, I grabbed a copy to help me figure out what to do. Ilona Bray diligently takes you through the fundamentals of establishing a fundraising program, how to attract donations and how to keep donors giving. There is some great practical advice from dozens of non-profit professionals included in Bray’s discussion.This book is worthy additional to anyone involved in fundraising for non-profits.

[oldbookswine · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The book belongs in all public libraries and most small nonprofits. Would make an excellent text for small business classes dealing with nonprofit fundraising.Clear directions to improve fund raising without the repeating of ideas from other sources. I found this book to be most helpful in my role on a small nonprofit in Texas. Everything from beginning a nonprofit to public relations this volume should see heavy use as nonprofit organization deal with the current recession. Tips are highlighted in each chapter as well as cautions. Answers some of the questions that have boards pondering like "should you use credit cards, how do we increase our giving base, and how to encourage givers to give more. As a nonprofit board member I plan to pass this on to my Ex. Director and President of the Board. Highly Recommended.Recommended for members of nonprofit boards, ex. directors trying to raise funds and for public libraries supporting community nonprofits.

[benjclark · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A KEEPER! As the director of a small nonprofit this book will sit on my desk for a long time. Already assigning chapters to board members to be studied, and applying some of the valuable, effective methods and strategies outlined in the book. Nearly all of the concepts are scalable to meet your organization's needs. Will be dipping into this for a long time to come! Strongly recommend!

[shawnmarie_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My husband and I are currently planning to set up a non-profit company and we have been looking for reference materials that we could understand.What we found were most of the books were written for someone other than ourselves - like lawyers, politicians, government officials - people like that.This book is written in terms we can understand. The examples given of types of fund raisers plus their plusses and misuses is wonderful. The blank worksheets in the back will also be extremely useful when the time comes to plan our fundraisers.All and all this is a great book for "regular people" who have to learn about some very specific parts of running a non-profit.Definitely a reference to keep.

[nathanaels_19 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As usual for Nollo, this guide is an information packed resource. It has a wealth of strategies and detailed explanations to help you create a fundraising plan and then put it into action. They include coverage of the legal implications of various types of fundraising and how to deal with those issues. Forms, worksheets and templates are included to help you get started. With such a large topic, marketing, this book obviously is very limited in the coverage it can give on any specialized topic, but it gives a clear introduction and the foundation necessary for a wide range of campaigns and fundraising tools. They even give some basics for planning your website and social networking campaign.

[sheherazahde · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a great book for Executive and Development Directors of small nonprofits with little experience in fundraising.This book is professional and easy to read. It is clearly organized with detailed instructions, worksheets, quick tips, and real life examples. It even has a good index so you can quickly find the advice you need. The chapters cover fundraising tools, planning, attracting and keeping donors, major donors, legacies, special events, sales activities, grants, printed materials, and this third edition contains chapters on website design and using social media.At 512 pages it is not quick read but it is a thorough reference you will want to keep on hand and share with the rest of the staff.